As they step into the control hub, Steven is still grinning, clearly pleased with himself, while Peridot sulks, arms crossed tightly over her chest.

"I can't believe you did that," she mutters under her breath. "I am forever marked as an accomplice to your… your vandalous anarchy! "

Steven snickers. "C'mon, Peri. It's not that big of a deal."

Peridot glares at him. " Not that big of a deal?! You defiled the most sacred visage in all of Gem history! I'm probably on some kind of celestial blacklist now! If White Diamond ever finds out—"

Steven shrugs. "Well, it's not like she can just walk in here and check, right? Nobody's been here for ages."

Peridot groans dramatically. "That's exactly what I used to think before today. But given how the universe seems to enjoy punishing me, I wouldn't be surprised if she materialized right now to personally obliterate me."

Steven gives her an amused side-eye. "Well, if she does show up, you can just tell her I did it."

Peridot gasps, offended. "What?! Absolutely not! I refuse to go down in history as the Gem who failed to stop the menace known as 'Steven Wimbleton!'"

Steven laughs as he approaches the main console, brushing some moon dust off its surface. "Alright, alright, let's focus. You said the coordinates should be in here?"

Peridot huffs but steps forward, pushing Steven aside. Soon as she lands her eyes on the console, her energies reinvigorate themselves and she grins. "Oh, my goodness!" She rushes to it. "This looks like it could be brand-new!" She puts a hand on her chin. "I mean, it's a relic by today's standards, but golly, it's so elegant, so simple, so perfect!"

Steven watches for a second. "Cool. How do you turn it on?"

Peridot pauses. "I have no idea."

They stand there for a while and Steven shrugs. "Well, till we discover, I'm resting." He sits on the armchair behind the console and accommodates his arms… accidentally turning on the console. "... Well, seems like it was one of these glowy hand stuff."

Peridot widens her eyes and freaks out. "YOU CAN'T SIT THERE!"

Steven laughs at her reaction. "Why not? It's pretty cool. I feel like a king on a throne."

Peridot grit her teeth. "That chair is only for the most elite Gems! You can't go around sitting where an elite would sit!"

Steven smirks. "Well, if I'm sitting here and only the elite sit here, it must mean something. And hey! It seems it still got space for ya." He moves a little to the side and pats the spot next to him.

Peridot freezes, her face cycling through about ten different expressions in the span of a second, horror, indignation, disbelief, and maybe just the tiniest hint of intrigue. She clenches her fists. "I—I refuse to partake in this blatant act of status falsification! "

Steven shrugs. "Suit yourself." He leans back in the chair, wiggling into the cushioned seat. "Man, this thing is comfy. I get why the 'elite' liked it so much."

Peridot grumbles, shifting from foot to foot. She keeps glancing at the empty space Steven just made for her. Finally, with a dramatic sigh, she mutters, "Well… I am the most qualified Gem here. Technically, that makes me the highest-ranking Gem in the room."

Steven smirks but says nothing as Peridot gingerly climbs onto the seat next to him, sitting as stiffly as a board. She keeps her arms crossed, glaring straight ahead. "This means nothing."

"Sure." Steven says, clearly holding back laughter. He looks to the arm on his side, seeing a weird prism-shaped thing. He grabs it. "Yo-hoho, what's this thing for?"

Peridot widens her eyes. "Put that back!"

Steven chuckles and put it back.

Peridot huffs, quickly diverting her attention to the console. "Huh, okay, let's see here." She presses a few buttons, and the chair moves closer to the console. "There we go." She starts meddling with the console. "This is a really old system." She opens a holographic screen in front of them. "Gotta find the right file…" She changes from file to file. "AHA! She shows a map of the world. "Cluster, Cluster, where are you, Cluster?" She gets the location, somewhere beneath Nevaska. "Aha! There's the insertion point!" She approaches the location. "Looks like the Beta Kindergarten in facet nine. It's the smaller of the two! Not nearly as impressive as the Prime Kindergarten!"

Steven looks at her with a neutral expression. "... translation?"

Peridot huffs. "There are two Kindergartens on Earth, the Prime Kindergarten and the Beta Kindergarten, y'know, the place where Jasper emerged. The Prime Kindergarten had way more resources, infrastructure, quality at all, while the Beta Kindergarten was just a failed test, way worse than the Prime."

Steven pauses and shivers. "You telling me that Jasper came from the worst place, and she's the Ultimate Quartz according to herself?! Like, she said she shattered like 80 Gems on her first day…" He whistles. "Damn. I don't even want to see what's a good Prime Quartz."

Peridot chuckles. "Oh please. Although Jasper came from Beta she's the strongest quartz. Strong, powerful, resistant… practically a miracle of Gem formation."

Steven sighs in relief. "Good to know I won't find more Jaspers in my life. One is already enough to beat me out." He chuckles. "Back to the relevant topic: Where's the Cluster now?"

Peridot nods. "Hang on." She meddles a bit more and finds the location. "There it is! It's embedded deep in the mantle. Relative to the G.U.N HQ, it's roughly 2500 units down. Basically 5 thousand kilometers down"

Steven widens his eyes. "Wait, 5k km down?! How the fuck are we supposed to go there?!"

Peridot rolls her eyes. "Relax. If we make a drill we will be able to get there."

Steven laughs. "OH BOY, you better make a GREAT DRILL to go 5 THOUSAND KILOMETERS DOWN!" He grit his teeths but sighs, rubbing his temples. "Whatever… by the way, what was this thing made for anyway? Like, it's very convenient to us, of course… but why?"

Peridot smirks. "It was used for planning the colony." She starts to press some buttons. "Here, look!" She shows a map with several red dots. "So here's a map of all structures that were originally built on Earth." She passes image by image, some that Steven knows and some unknown for him. "All told, this probably only accounts for maybe five percent of what was originally planned!"

Steven hums. "Damn… Then what was the plan?"

"Well, let's take a look." She presses some more buttons to show a holographic image of Earth. This image quickly is disfigured, having several holes on it and made totally hollow inside, with several structures, warp pads and transporting systems on the exterior. "Taa-Daa! A finished Earth colony!"

Steven widens his eyes in shock. He can't believe in his eyes. "This was what they planned for Earth?!" He thinks to himself.

Peridot grins, amazed. "Look at this! Eighty-nine kindergartens, sixty-seven spires, a galaxy warp in each facet, efficient use of all available materials." She laughs. "Why did they shut this operation down?! It could have been great!"

Steven suddenly grabs her head, striking it right on the console, breaking it on a half. He stands there, puffing violently, his eyes full of anger burning with a black energy. " 'Could have been great' ?! Are you serious?! So this is what your society does?! Exploit other planets till there is literally nothing there just to raise your empire?! This is worse than any prediction humanity could make for themselves!"

Peridot yelps, clutching her head as sparks fly from the cracked console. She turns to Steven, wide-eyed, her visor slightly askew. "W-What the—?! Steven, what is WRONG with you?!"

Steven is still breathing heavily, his fists clenched. His pupils are dilated, his whole body tense like a coiled spring ready to snap. Black energy flickers faintly around his form, distorting the air. "What's wrong with me ?" His voice comes out lower, almost growling. "What's wrong with you ?! You actually think this—" he gestures wildly to the projection of the gutted Earth "—is great ?!"

Peridot hesitates, her fingers twitching slightly as she adjusts her visor. "I-I didn't mean—" She stops herself, frowning, trying to regain her composure. "Just think about the good it would have done! The Gems that would have been made, our empire expanded! You said you were half-human or something like that, but you're also a Gem! You must think of your empire and your obligation as—"

Steven suddenly grips Peridot's gem in his hand and raises her to his eye-level. "I have no obligation ! I serve no-one ! I fight for whatever I want ! I hate most things on Earth, but the few good things are way more than worth to fight for, and you obviously will never understand!" He squeezes her gem a bit. "And trust me, I really want to shatter you right now, to make you suffer, to destroy every single gem that tries to destroy the planet where the worth things live! The only thing preventing me to do it is the fact I need you to save those things." He drops her on the ground, turning his back to her. "Now you will take us back to Earth, we're going to build that drill, and after that I'll decide your fate." He walks away.

Peridot stays on the ground, clutching her gem, trembling. She looks up at Steven, who walks away without even glancing back at her. Her mind races, her entire world turned upside down in a matter of seconds. That wasn't the playful guy who had shown nothing but fun to her. That was something else. Something terrifying.

Her hands shake as she adjusts her visor, running a diagnostic on herself. No structural damage, but… her whole body feels unstable, like the very essence of her being is questioning itself.

He was willing to shatter her. He was willing to kill her.

She swallows hard, staring at the cracked console before her. She's seen anger before, but this? This was something deeper, something raw, like a force of nature barely restrained.

Steven's power flared for just a moment, and it nearly consumed her.

Peridot pushes herself to her feet, wobbling slightly before steadying herself. She's always believed in logic, in the natural order of Gem superiority over organic life. It's what she was made for. But seeing Steven's determination to protect something so small like Earth made her, for the first time in her existence, feel genuinely afraid.

Not of Steven. But of the possibility that… maybe she's been wrong.

She shakes her head, trying to push the thought away. She looks at the prism-shaped object on the chair for a moment.

Once they're back on the ship, Steven sits on his seat in silence, still breathing deeply.

Peridot sits on her seat in front of the control panel, the prism-shaped object hid inside the control panel. Peridot hesitates before speaking, carefully choosing her words. "…I can take us back to Earth, but if we're going to build this drill, I need materials. A lot of them."

Steven doesn't respond at first. His fingers are tapping idly on the arm of his chair, slow and rhythmic, but there's a tension in his shoulders that hasn't faded. The black energy flickering around him is gone now, but the weight of what just happened still lingers between them.

Peridot clears her throat, trying again. "Ahem! I said I need materials—"

"I heard." Steven answers, the irritation clear on his voice. "G.U.N will provide everything you need to prevent this planet to explode or whatever the Cluster is gonna do."

Peridot chuckles in nervousness. "Yeah… Sure…" And she goes back to pilot the ship.

Back at the HQ of G.U.N, Steven goes straight to the containment sector, clenching his fists hard enough to release the dark energy through them.

Quickly he arrives at Jasper's cell, where Jasper is playing at the hand console and eating an energy bar. Steven suddenly punches the cell, making a loud thud that surprises Jasper.

Jasper looks up sharply, her grip tightening around the energy bar mid-bite. Her amber eyes narrow as she sees Steven standing there, fists clenched, black energy faintly flickering around his arms. She raises an eyebrow, finishing her bite slowly before speaking.

"Well, well. You look like you're about to explode." She smirks, tossing the wrapper aside. "Something piss you off, defective?"

Steven grits his teeth. "... You said the Crystal Gems protected the Earth from Homeworld, right?"

Jasper scoffs, leaning back against the wall of her cell with her arms crossed. "Yeah. Rose Quartz and her little band of misfits thought they could stand against the Diamond Authority. And somehow, they actually pulled it off." Her expression darkens. "Not that it mattered in the long run. Homeworld just abandoned the planet, left it to rot."

"And you said you fought them millennia ago, right?"

Jasper's expression shifts slightly, a hint of irritation crossing her face as she pushes herself off the wall, standing tall. "I fought them. A long time ago. I was part of the army that went after Rose Quartz."

Steven's fists tighten even further, the black energy flaring slightly as his anger rises again. "You don't care about anything, do you? You're just a tool of Homeworld, willing to destroy anything and everything just because they told you to, even if it's the planet where you came from."

Jasper's smirk falters for a moment, her amber eyes narrowing as she steps closer to the reinforced glass of her cell. Her voice drops, low and dangerous. "You think you know me, Steven? You think you understand what it means to be a Gem? To have a purpose?" She slams her fist against the glass, the impact reverberating through the room. "I was made to fight. To conquer. To serve the Diamonds. That's what I am. That's what all Gems are. We don't get to choose."

Steven stares at her for a big while, his eyes flaring with anger… when suddenly. "... Hah… Hah…" He starts laughing. "Hahahahaha!"

Jasper grits her teeth and punches the glass again. "What are you laughing at?!"

Steven keeps laughing, slowly stopping, shaking his head. "... You're pathetic."

Jasper's eyes widen for a fraction of a second before her expression hardens into a scowl. She slams her fist against the glass again, the sound echoing through the containment sector. "Pathetic?!" She growls, her voice low and dangerous. "You think you can stand there and judge me, you—"

"Shut up." Steven interrupts with a smile. "You're absolutely pathetic. You got so deep in a brainwashing that you don't even try to think by yourself anymore. You're nothing but a weapon to Homeworld. You destroy, conquer and everything just for an empire that doesn't even care for your life, and the moment you find someone that made their own purpose to be happy and make others happy you fight them because you think they betrayed the 'bigger purpose' or some bullshit like that."

He laughs again. "But look at where the 'bigger purpose' took you! You're in a human cell in the planet you hate the most, going to be destroyed by a weapon your superiors you love so much made!" He shakes his head in disbelief. "I can't believe I did believe that you could be better. That you could change. That you could be a better person like I did… It's clear I was wrong. You're stuck in this cycle of patheticity that you REFUSE to leave."

Jasper's fists tremble as she glares at Steven, her amber eyes burning with a mix of rage and something else, something she can't quite place. "You think you're so much better than me, don't you? Just because you're some… defective who thinks he can save everyone? You don't know what it's like to be a real Gem. You don't know what it's like to have a purpose forced on you from the moment you emerge."

Steven's laughter fades, and his expression hardens. "You're right. I don't know what it's like to be a Gem. But I do know what it's like to have a purpose forced on me. And I chose to reject it. I chose to make my own path. You could too, but you're too scared to even try."

Jasper's jaw tightens, and for a moment, she looks like she's about to retort, but no words come out. She turns away, her fists still clenched, her back to Steven. The silence between them is heavy, filled with unspoken tension.

Steven takes a deep breath, the black energy around him dissipating completely. "When the Cluster emerges, it's not just going to destroy Earth. It's going to destroy you too. And if you're okay with that, then fine. But don't expect me to feel sorry for you."

With that, Steven turns and walks away, leaving Jasper alone in her cell. She stares at the wall, her mind racing, her fists still trembling. For the first time in her long existence, doubt creeps into her thoughts, doubt about her purpose, her loyalty, and everything she's ever believed in.

Meanwhile, Steven heads back to the main control room, where Peridot is already working on the schematics for the drill. She glances up as he enters, her expression a mix of apprehension and curiosity. "Did you… uh, take care of whatever you needed to do?"

Steven nods, his demeanor calm but distant. "Yeah. Let's focus on the drill. We don't have much time."

Peridot hesitates for a moment, then nods, turning back to her work. The two of them work in silence, the weight of their earlier confrontation still lingering in the air. But for now, they have a mission to complete, and a planet to save.

[TO BE CONTINUED]